


But My Peace Has Always Depended On All The Ashes In My Wake

by stencilSparkler



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Persona 5 Spoilers, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, just a couple of sad tired boys being tired and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stencilSparkler/pseuds/stencilSparkler
Summary: Whatever sense of determination and bravado Akira had when he threw that calling card at Maruki has evaporated- now he just feels tired. Akira doesn’t know why Akechi’s hesitating now of all times- he’s the one who asked to speak with him, after all. He finally turns to face Akechi, but still finds himself unable to look him in the eyes. Something about it feels too intimate, too final- he knows it’ll probably be the last time he ever sees them.“Would… would it really be so bad for us to stay here?” He speaks, lower than a whisper, and regrets voicing the thought almost immediately with the way Akechi whips his head around to glare at Akira, scoffing at whatever expression Akira apparently has on his face.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 81





	But My Peace Has Always Depended On All The Ashes In My Wake

“I’d like to speak with Akira.” Akechi’s voice pierces through the café, breaking the charged silence that followed Maruki’s departure.

“Akechi… gotcha. I’ll leave the decision up to you, Akira- let me know when you’ve reached an answer”, Morgana says, before jumping off of the table and padding over to the stairs. Akira isn’t sure where to look- he feels as though if he looks at Akechi now he might just burst into tears or do something else he’ll regret, so he settles for staring at the wall behind the counter top, in the general direction of Akechi’s head. 

The atmosphere in the café becomes, if at all possible, even more tense with the two of them alone. The air is filled with an oppressive silence, the hum of the fridge and the faintest ticking of the clock doing nothing to drown out the noise of Akira’s thoughts. It looks like he forgot to empty out one of the coffee pots- he should really get around to cleaning that up after Akechi leaves ( _please Akechi don’t leave yet-)_

Whatever sense of determination and bravado Akira had when he threw that calling card at Maruki has evaporated- now he just feels tired. Akira doesn’t know why Akechi’s hesitating now of all times- he’s the one who asked to speak with him, after all. He finally turns to face Akechi, but still finds himself unable to look him in the eyes. Something about it feels too intimate, too final- he knows it’ll probably be the last time he ever sees them.

“Would… would it really be so bad for us to stay here?” He speaks, lower than a whisper, and regrets voicing the thought almost immediately with the way Akechi whips his head around to glare at Akira, scoffing at whatever expression Akira apparently has on his face.

“I will carve my own path for myself. I refuse to accept a reality concocted by someone else, stuck under their control for the rest of my days.”

“So, choosing to go back to a reality where you don’t even exist anymore is ‘carving your own path’ now, is it?” Akira murmurs under his breath, not quite managing to hide the bitter tone. Akechi’s gloved hands are clenched into fists, the leather quietly creaking with the movements.

“So what if it is. That’s the path I chose,” Akechi bites out in return. He finally pulls his gaze away from Akechi’s hands and forces himself to look him in the eyes, to voice feelings that he didn’t even know he was feeling until they started this stupid conversation.

“At least if we stay here you’d have days to continue living _out_ , Akechi, when we beat Maruki then you’ll-“

“Are you really so spineless that you’d fold over some bullshit, trivial threat on my life? What happened to all that conviction you showed just a few minutes ago?”

“Quit oversimplifying things! This isn’t _trivial_ , Akechi, we’re talking about your _life here!_ ”

“My life has always been trivial.” Akechi says under his breath. He’s turned his head away again, and his tone of voice has become a bit softer, but the fiery hatred in his eyes and the creaking of his gloves betray his bitter feelings on the matter.

“Do you think I’d be happy with this? Being shown mercy now, of all times?! I don’t want to be pitied-this isn’t something I’m debating with you!”

_“I can’t lose you again, Goro!”_

Akechi freezes in the middle of his rebuttal, probably startled into silence at Akira shouting more than anything else.

“I’m not… I can’t- not again, I’m not s-strong enough…” Akira presses the heels of his palms into his eyes; he’s sure that the last thing Akechi wants right now is to see him break down crying over him.

He tries to brace himself, fully expecting Akechi to bite out some remark about how weak and emotional he is, or how he’s being patronizing or some other bullshit comment like that, but it never comes. He just hears a quiet sigh, and a shifting of fabric. He finally forces himself to look up at Akechi again- he’s sat down at the counter top, and he’s not facing Akira with fire and bitter poison in his eyes anymore- he just looks so, so tired.

“One of my biggest regrets, one of the things that’s been weighing on my mind for _months_ is the fact that we couldn’t save you in that engine room. And I know you don’t want pity, or mercy, and you think you deserved to die in there anyway, but- but you helped us to escape, in the end, you changed your own heart and saved all of our lives in there, and it felt like we failed you when we couldn’t even save you from yourself.” _In more ways than one_ , is what he doesn’t say.

“And now, now that you’re back here, even though this is supposed to be a reality where everything is perfect, all I can think about is how we failed to save you in that room and now it feels like I’m failing to save you all over again and I just-“ He’s rambling, he knows he is, but now that he’s started voicing all of his thoughts that have been building up for hours (days, _weeks_ ) he just can’t seem to bring himself to _stop-_

“Look, I _get_ why you don’t want to live in this reality, okay? You’ve dealt with being controlled and manipulated by Shido and the media and the police and the literal _god of control_ for your entire life, alright, I _get_ why you don’t want to live in a reality that’s controlled by Maruki, and I _know_ we have to stop him and save everyone from this distorted reality. But don’t you _dare_ act like this is an easy decision I- we’re making here.” He manages to stutter out, his voice hitching in that way that completely betrays the fact that he’s trying to hide his tears from Akechi.

He hears Akechi let out another quiet sigh as he finishes his piece. And then, much to Akira’s surprise, he feels a gentle tug on his jacket sleeve- Akechi’s pulled him forward into his chest, wrapping an arm around his shoulder as Akira buries his face in the crook of Akechi’s neck. It doesn’t feel quite right to call it a hug- more just a reassurance through touch that, at this specific moment, Akechi’s not going anywhere.

“Maybe for you it’s not. I’ve been expecting to die my entire life, really, so this is nothing new to me.

Some days, it was ‘maybe today will be the day that my mother truly won’t be able to stand the sight of me anymore’, and then it became ‘I wonder if this foster family will be the one that I piss off enough for them to toss me out into the street’…

And then, of course, once I began working for Shido, there was the constant threat of being eliminated if I didn’t follow his orders fast enough, or so much as thought of trying to escape- even if I tried to delude myself into thinking I was above that. There were even a couple of times where I thought about following in my mother’s footsteps…” Akechi speaks with the softest tone of voice he’s had all day, as if he’s reliving a beloved childhood memory, or talking about his favorite book, and not how he’s spent his entire life with a noose winding its way around his neck.

“But… I refused to give _him_ the satisfaction of having all his mistakes cleaned up for him. I refused to die until he had atoned for ruining my mother’s life. And now he’s done that, albeit with a less violent ending than I had initially hoped for, and he can’t threaten me anymore.” And there, if Akira looks hard enough, is a ghost of a smile on Akechi’s lips- far from the plastic smiles of his “detective prince” image, but not one of the barbed smirks he’s grown used to either- however small and brittle it is, this feels like the first genuine smile he’s seen Akechi wear in a long, long time.

“So yes, while I wish that I could say that I managed to beat the odds and survive, and I can’t say I’m exactly looking forward to my imminent death, _again_ … at least I’m getting to choose my own path this time, which is about the next best thing I could ask for.”

God, this whole conversation is so fucked up.

The two of them stand there for a little while in the silence of the café, Akechi absentmindedly carding his hand through Akira’s hair as Akira tries to pull the pieces of himself back together. It’s an unusually soft and intimate gesture coming from Akechi, and if Akira thinks too hard about what it means he might just fall apart all over again.

“Will… you at least stay for a little while longer? I think there’s still a bit of coffee left in the pot there if you want some,” Akira whispers, his voice still a bit too shaky to pass for normal.

“I’d like that.” Fortunately, it seems that Akechi is using whatever small amount of tact he has left and just isn’t going to comment on it.

At least preparing the coffee gives Akira a little more time to collect himself, so by the time the two are sat down at the bar again, Akira has some semblance of composure again.

It’s far from the greatest cup of coffee Akira’s ever had- the coffee had been sitting in the machine for hours, and had gone cold from when they closed up Leblanc and turned off the machines for the night, so he had to heat it back up again.

Still, Akechi seems to be enjoying it nonetheless. He’s since removed his gloves, holding the warm cup with both hands and closing his eyes as he breathes in the aroma of the coffee.

The two of them sit at the bar long into the night, sharing one last moment of reprieve in each other’s company before their long battle tomorrow; one last calm before the storm. 

And if Akechi’s hands shake ever so slightly as he savors his last cup of coffee… well, that’ll just be one last secret for the two of them to share.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact the "i cant lose you again im not strong enough" line popped into my head at like 2 am, broke into my house and stole my lunch money,, that one line p much served as the basis for the entire fic  
> hope you liked it!! thanks for reading <3


End file.
